Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Wyatt Earp 2.0, by Wil McCarthy

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(SF) A violent Martian mining town reconstructs Wyatt Earp to try to restore order. (23,362 words; Time: 1h:17m)

Rating: ★★★★☆ Recommended
Recommended By: SFRevu:4 RHorton:4 Readers LTilton

"," by (edited by Trevor Quachri), appeared in issue 01-02|16, published on by .

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Pro: This is really the story of how Wyatt Faxborn learns to be a man again. He misses his wife, but he misses his old friends, the people he could trust, even more. When he brings back Doc Holiday, he's complete again.

Ironically, Holiday is associated with the same violence in Tombstone that he earlier said he wanted to live down.

Con: It's rather difficult to believe the sophisticated society of 500 years from now would still have this much violence even on Mars.

The story has a fair amount of extraneous material. The orgy with the two women and the excursion to Paris both seem unnecessary.

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4 comments (may contain spoilers):

  1. This was a good one!

    Question: I don't see "Timeout" (Probability Zero) on the list of reviewed stories for the issue. Was that an oversight, or do you not review the shortest stories?

    Again--great job with this website! Thanks for the work you put in.

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    1. Good catch! I actually read it, but somehow failed to write the review. I've done that just now.

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  2. I can see why this got some attention as it's a striking concept, but I very quickly found it quite silly and abandoned the story. It seemed to be selling the idea that the wimpy modern men just needed some good old fashioned common sense and two-fisted discipline, which I don't find very interesting as a story.

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    Replies
    1. Lots of stories have a really silly what-if. ("The Day the World Turned Upside Down" is an extreme example.) Eric and I differ a lot on how silly a what-if we can tolerate, but, clearly, if you can't swallow the what-if, the whole story flops.

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